By Temitope Muhideen (Convydence)
Dear Mallams,
My warm greetings sirs. I hope you are staying safe for the task ahead.
Quickly, please permit me to confess that this wouldn’t be my first time calling you and your camps to order regarding your political aspirations. Sometime last year, in my article entitled “Political gidigbo (wrestling in Kwara central)”, I implored you both to regulate the uncouth statements coming from your media teams against your respective persons.
I also reminded you about the political war of 2003 in Kwara between late Alabi Lawal and late Olusola Saraki. Sadly, your recent letters showed that you might be on the verge of dragging us back to that era as you have taken the battle too personally by using derogatory remarks on each other, exposing your weaknesses, and perhaps starting what might turn into a serious political fight. I ask, “How did we get here?”
The basis of your enmity started with your political sobriquets of Big Ideas and Big impacts. Your Excellencies, like every other progressive Kwaran would do, I so much believe in the strategic ability to translate the core meanings of your political sobriquets to the people of Kwara central without taking each other to the gutter as you both did in your letters. I asked myself the meaning of the prefix “MALLAM” attached to your names, and I found that it means “teacher”. Teachers are builders of society, with good traits and enviable character. Teachers don’t engage in a show of public embarrassment.
Your excellencies, it saddens me to tell you that your political competition has become cutthroat and has begun to take the form of zero-sum games, where one side’s gain is inherently the other’s loss. Finding a common cause is becoming impossible. And, as one of you put it, “Friendship should be treasured regardless of the situation.” I’d like to believe that it can be real.
I’ll consequently urge you both to showcase your big ideas and impacts without necessarily shading each other. With love, I wish you well in your aspirations.
Temitope writes via temitope.muhideen@gmail.com